20th century of the USA

Iron Curtain

• Non-physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945
• Later became a term for the 7,000-kilometre-long physical barrier
• The Iron Curtain extended to the airwaves as well
• Iron Curtain largely ceased to exist in 1989–90

Truman doctrine, policy of containment

• Harry S. Truman established that the US will provide assistance to all democratic nations under threat
• The Truman Doctrine arose on March 12, 1947
• US was afraid of the Soviet Union influence on the Greek war
• President Truman requested that Congress provide $400,000,000 worth of aid to both the Greek and Turkish Governments
• Strategy of "containment" is preventing the spread of communism

Arms race

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  Occurs when countries increase the size and quality of military resources to gain superiority over one another
• The United States didn’t notify the Soviet Union about the plan to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima
• The start of the Cold War was in 1949, when the Soviets tested their own atomic bomb
• The Cold War ended in 1991; however many argue the arms race has not

McCarthy era

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  Byname for defamation of character by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations
• Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was constantly investigating various government departments and questioning innumerable witnesses about their suspected communist affiliations without any evidence
• He failed to make a plausible case against anyone
• The public turned against McCarthy, and the Senate censured him

Korean War

• In August 1945, two young aides at the State Department divided the Korean peninsula in half along the 38th parallel
• The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel
• In July 1951, President Truman and his new military commanders started peace talks at Panmunjom
• Nearly 5 million people died

Role of J. F. Kennedy

• The 35th president of the United States, youngest U.S. presidents
• Kennedy confronted mounting Cold War tensions in Cuba, Vietnam and elsewhere, provided federal support for the growing civil rights movement
• In July 1963, Kennedy won his greatest foreign affairs victory in signing a nuclear test ban treaty
• On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was struck twice, in the neck and head, and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at a nearby hospital